France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
So, however, in this Medicean Tuileries, shall the French King
and Queen now sit, for one-and-forty months; and see a
wild-fermenting France work out its own destiny, and theirs.
Months bleak, ungenial, of rapid vicissitude; yet with a mild
pale splendour, here and there: as of an April that were leading
to leafiest Summer; as of an October that led only to everlasting
Frost. Medicean Tuileries, how changed since it was a peaceful
Tile field! Or is the ground itself fate-stricken, accursed: an
Atreus’ Palace; for that Louvre window is still nigh, out of
which a Capet, whipt of the Furies, fired his signal of the Saint
Bartholomew! Dark is the way of the Eternal as mirrored in this
world of Time: God’s way is in the sea, and His path in the great
deep.
Chapter 2.1.II.
In the Salle de Manége.
To believing Patriots, however, it is now clear, that the
Constitution will march, _marcher_,—had it once legs to stand on.
Quick, then, ye Patriots, bestir yourselves, and make it; shape
legs for it! In the _Archevêché_, or Archbishop’s Palace, his
Grace himself having fled; and afterwards in the Riding-hall,
named Manege, close on the Tuileries: there does a National
Assembly apply itself to the miraculous work. Successfully, had
there been any heaven-scaling Prometheus among them; not
successfully since there was none! There, in noisy debate, for
the sessions are occasionally “scandalous,” and as many as three
speakers have been seen in the Tribune at once,—let us continue
to fancy it wearing the slow months.
Tough, dogmatic, long of wind is Abbé Maury; Ciceronian pathetic
is Cazalès. Keen-trenchant, on the other side, glitters a young
Barnave; abhorrent of sophistry; sheering, like keen Damascus
sabre, all sophistry asunder,—reckless what else he sheer with
it. Simple seemest thou, O solid Dutch-built Pétion; if solid,
surely dull. Nor lifegiving in that tone of thine, livelier
polemical Rabaut. With ineffable serenity sniffs great Sieyes,
aloft, alone; his Constitution ye may babble over, ye may mar,
but can by no possibility mend: is not Polity a science he has
exhausted? Cool, slow, two military Lameths are visible, with
their quality sneer, or demi-sneer; they shall gallantly refund
their Mother’s Pension, when the Red Book is produced; gallantly
be wounded in duels. A Marquis Toulongeon, whose Pen we yet
thank, sits there; in stoical meditative humour, oftenest silent,
accepts what destiny will send. Thouret and Parlementary Duport
produce mountains of Reformed Law; liberal, Anglomaniac,
available and unavailable. Mortals rise and fall. Shall goose
Gobel, for example,—or Go(with an umlaut)bel, for he is of
Strasburg German breed, be a Constitutional Archbishop?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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